I was talking to a friends grandpa who mentioned that his grand father was fighting on the union side during the war and it got me thinking about what would have happened if the south ended up winning the war. How would the US be different, how would that outcome change the rest of the world? or would it?
I assume slavery would have continued for a few more decades but i’d think that it would have ended sometime in the early 1900’s, no real reason behind that theory though. Would we be 2 separate countries?
Prior to the civil war there was already a lot of opposition between the North and the South fueled mostly by economic interests. So you could assume that even if the South had won the war, whichever side had more economic clout would eventually dictate the direction of how the US was goverened.
Also, secession of the southern states was mostly supported by big plantation owners who wanted to keep their slaves - human capital. But if you consider the advent of industrialization, you’d have to assume that eventually machines would make humans the less economically efficient source of labor.
So again, even if the South had won, eventually slaves would be replaced by machines and factories. But would the slaves be freed? I don’t know, actually I doubt it.
Alexis De Toquevcille who came to America to study our glorious ways in the 1830s could provide more info on the sentiments towards slavery at that time. I’m too lazy to look it up right now though, but I think he said something like, the southerners don’t NEED their slaves, but they also don’t want to let them go.
Something akin to job security for the whites. More interestingly though, Toq also said that keeping the slaves uneducated was their greatest fetter. And its true, eventhough the slaves were freed, they’ve been kept uneducated well into the 1900s (arguably still if you buy into institutionalized racism), which i guess in a free market is a worse kind of slavery.
Anyways, my theory would also be of 2 separate countries - I’m sure the Northerners wouldn’t be down for living under Southern laws. Even if its because they’re simply impractical to Northern living, again in terms of economic interests. That, or one giant strip mall from Florida to Maine.
The Confederacy promised freedom to slaves who fought for them and had offered to end slavery in exchange for diplomatic recognition from Paris and London so I doubt slavery would have gone on under the Confederate States.
Great question and one that has been argued over for years among historians.
I believe that if the South won, the Confederacy would have never survived as a nation. All the states would have never been able to agree on a national law. (It is to be noted, though that the South did not like states rights until they separated from the USA. They actually liked national law until around 1830 when the North started pressuring national abolition. The North started pressuring as more states from the West were admitted into the USA and once Lincoln was president, the South knew he’d end slavery or at least make it harder to have slaves.)
Anyway, I’m guessing that if the South won, there would have been another Civil War among the CSA. This is not only because of political reasons, but economically, the upper South and lower South were split. The upper South still needed the North because they had been doing business with them from the goods (cotton) the South was making - like textiles for the North to make industrially. The lower South wanted more land for cotton. They would have tried expanding South. Thus, there would have been another war in the Caribbean. At that point, the South would have exhausted all their resources and been crippled anyway. Slavery definitely would have ended.
Basically, it’s a darn good thing the Union won. Truthfully, as a history student, I am a Southern sympathizer, but there would have been absolute chaos if the South had won.
Oh how sweet victory does taste even centuries later. My great great etc Grandfather fought for the north when he was 17 (his personal memoirs talk about him lying about his age to enlist)
I remember hearing about the South believing that somehow they would certainly obtain the backing of the important European nations because their cotton was the best in the world…but then England, France etc just bought it from Egypt. Id guess something along those lines would of occurred because the north was financially superior and worth more money to the European nations and the north would of shunned or heavily taxed European goods even more.
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
Who gives a shit. We are where we are. Stop looking back.
[/quote]
Oh wow, what a brilliant theory, sir.
Yeah, screw history. Let’s put on our blinders and be ignorant to the reasons why we are where we are today. We can’t change the past, so why even care? Why bother to speculate how our nation could have changed? Why appreciate the present even more due to what happened in the past?
Your analysis should be published so it can be brought to the attention of history scholars who have spent years and years wasting their time studying history. Bravo. They will finally see the light.
Seriously. If you’re going to make an imbecilic comment using the logic of a 3rd grader, don’t participate in the thread.
People study the past and visualize different outcomes, which gives them practice for when they have to plan for the future. Yeesh.
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
Who gives a shit. We are where we are. Stop looking back.
[/quote]
Oh wow, what a brilliant theory, sir.
Yeah, screw history. Let’s put on our blinders and be ignorant to the reasons why we are where we are today. We can’t change the past, so why even care? Why bother to speculate how our nation could have changed? Why appreciate the present even more due to what happened in the past?
Your analysis should be published so it can be brought to the attention of history scholars who have spent years and years wasting their time studying history. Bravo. They will finally see the light.
Seriously. If you’re going to make an imbecilic comment using the logic of a 3rd grader, don’t participate in the thread.
People study the past and visualize different outcomes, which gives them practice for when they have to plan for the future. Yeesh.[/quote]
[quote]Mascherano wrote:
Hmm…that’s a good question.
Prior to the civil war there was already a lot of opposition between the North and the South fueled mostly by economic interests. So you could assume that even if the South had won the war, whichever side had more economic clout would eventually dictate the direction of how the US was goverened.
[/quote]
You make this mistake several times in your post, the Southern States wanted freedom. They did not want to dictate nor be dictated. They were defending themselves, not making a forward action to occupy the Yanks. If the Confederate States would have won, their would be two countries running down the country from East to West, from ocean to ocean.
The demographic of people that supported and were against secession was mixed, however majority of the Southern States (there was a heavier amount of anti-secession in the population along the border states, however they still accepted to secede, except Maryland that was taken over in a Police State by order of Lincoln) population was in favor and the majority was not made up of plantation owners (even though I doubt any were anti-secession for obvious reasons). Yes, there were some people that wished to keep their slaves, and there was some like General Lee and Stone Wall Jackson that wished to free the slaves. Those two men still fought for their respective Confederate States. It had to do with their loyalty to their states not a Confederation or Union. Enough on that for now.
The idea of share cropping was coming up before the Civil War and there was word spreading that the slaves would eventually need to be freedom sometime before the turn of the 20th century (in the CSA).
He was selective in his studying, he studied the racist group of slave holders that wished to keep their slaves, even though they in the future would not be needed to the extent as they were, instead of focusing on the three different groups of slave holders.
Yes, it is one of the down falls of the Democratic party, and a sad one. I do not attempt to justify the slave holding of the South. However, not all Democrats (or Catholic/Esp Christians) believed that it was their rite to hold human property.
Well I’m not sure if the slaves would appreciate the education system now, I do not, it seems like I can find more truths in a pamphlet on a subject at the library, than I can find in a semester of class on the topic. However, the uneducation/miseducation of the slaves was and is a problem. Very few plantation owners took the time to teach their share croppers to save, et cetera. However, you could always turn it around and assume that few share croppers never asked.
I think you need to learn the thoughts of the North and the South. It was not the idea of two different countries, people had more pride in their individual states than in a big country. So, I think you mean to say that there would be a Union and a Confederacy. The South did not suppose to put law on the Yanks, even though the Yanks would have liked to put law on the Rebels.
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
Who gives a shit. We are where we are. Stop looking back.
[/quote]
I personally could care less if you are from the North or the South. I am annoyed by idiots who still think its 1865…its over and no one cares what ur fuckin hill billy inbred family thinks.
Oh how sweet victory does taste even centuries later. My great great etc Grandfather fought for the north when he was 17 (his personal memoirs talk about him lying about his age to enlist)
I remember hearing about the South believing that somehow they would certainly obtain the backing of the important European nations because their cotton was the best in the world…but then England, France etc just bought it from Egypt. Id guess something along those lines would of occurred because the north was financially superior and worth more money to the European nations and the north would of shunned or heavily taxed European goods even more.[/quote]
If the North was better, how come the South made more per capita income than the Yanks?
[quote]thefederalist wrote:
it would’ve been better for the north had the south successfully seceded. so many useless, unproductive, leech states down there. [/quote]
Well when you dismantle a state and take away everything (reconstruction) it is kind of hard to be productive.
And if you look at it, the leech states were in the North East before the Confederate States seceded.
